Mask
by Nightmare Romance
Summary: A story about death and the lives that some after it.


I am alone. It's as if my senses have been switched off. I cannot see, nor can I touch, smell, hear or taste. I cannot even scream for help. Perhaps I am merely my mind, or maybe I am only my soul. I do not know what separates the mind from the soul, or vice versa. I cannot tell how long I have felt like this. All I can do is feel and what I can feel is a hideous, horrible and ugly emotion. My life was not a pleasant one and this emotion is not unfamiliar to me but I never believed that such a thing happened after death.

Now, I feel cold. It's as if it's just been raining. There's the same emptiness in the air. The same quiet and yet chilling atmosphere. There's nothing around me. Nothing to stabilise me. I have no sense of where I am or what I am doing. I do sense that I am moving… though there is no guarantee of even that much. It's unnerving. I suddenly feel a wrenching inside me. It could have been a stomach and I came to believe it more when I then felt heaviness too. I am reassured that I have been this sad for a long time.

I feel hollow. It's as if my body is floating. As ceaseless and without intention as a sheet of paper caught in an updraft. Yet the movement is slow. I feel as if I am falling through space. Or maybe I am climbing. Now I smell something earthy. It has been raining. There is soil and stone in the air, I can taste it now. Strong and familiar, like a home away from home. It was somewhat assailing but it not unpleasant. Somehow, I feel a little lighter. My head is clearer. It is obvious now that I am not dead. I stay in this state for a while and with a sudden feeling of awareness washing over my unclouded head, I am given a chance to think.

I have forgotten what happened to me. I can only recall how it felt to die. It has been replying in my mind/soul all this time. My heart suddenly becomes heavy again as I am forced to feel my final feelings, though there are no pictures to go with it.

If there is a god, he has a sick sense of humour.

I thought I was gone. I thought that whatever made me sentient had long since been washed away. Death is disorientating. I do not know how long I have left my life. Now, I doubted if I had truly left at all. There is a ripple through me, like a lightning strike and suddenly I feel. I am aware of myself. I can move. I wave my arms and though it is like I am pushing them through treacle, I now know I have limbs. I keep moving, it feels strange, not how I remember but I feel my body and head sway at my command. I am swimming now, through a thick, cold sea of memories. Some are nice. Most are not.

Then, in some such way, I open my eyes. What I see is no different initially. Just infinite darkness at every angle. I fall back into my thoughts. Is this real? Am I alive now or not? If I am, where do I go now? If I am not, what do I do? In an answer to my questions, a brilliant light shines down from above. I squint, the brightness burning my eyes. I blink a few times before I have courage to look up. It's like looking at the sun. I flap my arms up and down, moving towards it. My answers are obviously calling to me. Who am I to ignore them? My only other option is to dwell in this consuming blackened darkness. With my resolve hardening, I continue.

As I get closer, I see something break the light. It is oval-shaped, gold and somewhat lustrous, though that could have been its backlight tricking my eyes. It falls as fast as I swim towards it, rotating as if it were in slow-motion. It's close now and I stop swimming to watch it for a little longer. Then I reach my arms out, which I notice, look distorted and dark. I blame the light and toss the thought away as the strange object falls closer. In seconds it touches my skin. And my stomach dives.

I feel a rush of emotion surge through me. The memories around me roar with light and sounds. All of their meanings and significance become relevant and important. I look around me. These memories, they are mine. They are my life laid out like a map before me. My grip tightens on the object and I hold it out to the light, looking at it properly for the first time.

It is my face.

My lifeless, cold face staring up at me. Hewn in a pale gold. It looks like a mask. But it is me, I am sure. I feel tears welling up in my eyes and a tidal wave of emotion wash and re-wash over me. I want to throw it away, cast it down into the dark before fleeing into the safe light above me. But I don't. I give into another feeling which makes me hold the wretched thing close to my body. This is a part of me. I am sure of it and though holding it fills me with utmost misery, it also fills me with great warmth and joy. I am alive. I can feel it now. This mask is all the proof I need for that fact. I look at the disgusting thing again and then up to the light. With a heavy soul and an open mind watch it start to flicker and a sudden fear rushes through me as I realise that I must move quick or the light might go out. I swim as much as I can, my single free arm flailing in front me. I do not move any faster than I did before and my fear and panic become even stronger along with the sick feeling in my stomach. When the light was eclipsed by a shadow, my panicked grew even worse again, fearing that this light/gateway could be closing. Soon, however, I am struck with sudden realisation. The shadow is in fact a hand, reaching towards me. I redouble my efforts but instead pushing away from what's left of the light. The hand however is hampered not by the force that slows me. It clutches me and my mask before pulling me backwards, up and into the light, which swallows me, whole.

Suddenly, I am blinded and then pulled ever faster by the mysterious hand. I am clouded by confusion and fear as the air rushes past me. Everything in an inconsistent blur and my heart hammers as question after question is brought up in my mind before being tossed away with the speed. Then I stop. Before me is a giant pair of bright red eyes sitting underneath a wide grin. The hand releases me but I do not fall, I only rotate the right way up. The face in front of me does not stop smiling but it's slowly shifted its gaze, from my face, down to my mask. It glares at it hungrily, chuckling slightly when I grip it tighter. I realise that I am moving backwards but I am not walking. For the first time, I glance down at my body. I was not walking, because I have no legs I have only a long, black, tail-like appendage that twitches when I wish it to. Shocked, I glance around for something, anything which will show me my reflection. I do not have far to look.

I recognise the smiling creature in front of me as a Pokémon, a Cofigrigus and its shiny golden body I see my reflection. My body is small, black and shadowy with a set of huge, blood-red eyes. My arms are long, shapeless and trembling as I clutch the golden mask, making sure to turn its face away from my reflection. I do not want to look at it. I look up at Cofigrigus's smiling face and it chuckles at me once more.

"Yamask…." Was all that it said.


End file.
